20 Questions (game)

[breaker's glider gun]

This thread is for the playing of the game "20 Questions."

It has rather simple rules;
player 1 chooses a plant or animal, and says "I have a plant" or "I have an animal".(we're not bothering with minerals; they sometimes get messy.)
any player besides player 1 may ask a yes or no question about the animal/plant.
player 1 must answer, and then say the number of questions left.

I have an animal.

[Moosey]

Is your answer to this question "no"?

Also the sandbox is supposed to have CA-related, or at least academic, things, for moderation reasons, so threads like this probably shouldn't be created in the future.

[Aleph]

This thread is for the playing of the game "20 Questions."

It has rather simple rules;
player 1 chooses a plant or animal, and says "I have a plant" or "I have an animal".(we're not bothering with minerals; they sometimes get messy.)
any player besides player 1 may ask a yes or no question about the animal/plant.
player 1 must answer, and then say the number of questions left.

I have an animal.

The species is undecidable. A quick internet search reveals that there are "between 3 and 30 million" animal species (source: https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-anim ... net-130923), and with 20 yes/no questions, we can only distinguish between 1048576 of them.

[breaker's glider gun]

snip

The species is undecidable. A quick internet search reveals that there are "between 3 and 30 million" animal species (source: https://www.thoughtco.com/how-many-anim ... net-130923), and with 20 yes/no questions, we can only distinguish between 1048576 of them.

First, you don't need to be mean and use some obscure species of tortoise, you only need something like "box turtle" or just "tortoise."
Second, a lot of questions narrow it down a lot, like "is it a vertabrate?"
Third, we will outlaw insects, which will hopefully make it better,
And lastly, please, don't be annoyingly mean about obscure animals.

[Moosey]

Second, a lot of questions narrow it down a lot, like "is it a vertabrate?" [sic]

wwei was talking about the best strategy, assuming the worst case situation occurs, which is to eliminate exactly half of the options, since in the worst-case, you still eliminate half; if you try to eliminate, say, 60%, then if you get the answer you didn't want then only 40% is eliminated.



To give an example: suppose I ask "is it a marsupial?" or something of that nature. If the answer is "yes", then I've eliminated almost everything (lucky me!), so I narrowed it down a lot... but if the answer is "no", then I've eliminated almost nothing.

[breaker's glider gun]

wwei was talking about the best strategy, assuming the worst case situation occurs, which is to eliminate exactly half of the options, since in the worst-case, you still eliminate half; if you try to eliminate, say, 60%, then if you get the answer you didn't want then only 40% is eliminated.



To give an example: suppose I ask "is it a marsupial?" or something of that nature. If the answer is "yes", then I've eliminated almost everything (lucky me!), so I narrowed it down a lot... but if the answer is "no", then I've eliminated almost nothing.

well, you would probably use: "is it a marsupial, pachyderm, equine, canine, or feline?" which will be answered "yes" or "no."
but, fair enough.

also, another source (though I havve lost it) said that there were 1.2 discovered species.

Also, can we stop arguing about this, and get down to the game?